Saturday, 31 May 2014

Today’s guest blog is by Nicola Upson who was born in
Suffolk and read English at Downing College, Cambridge. Her debut novel, An Expert in Murder, was the first in a
series of crime novels whose main character is Josephine Tey - one of the
leading authors of Britain's Golden Age of crime writing. An Expert in Murder was dramatised by BBC Scotland for Woman’s Hour.

The Red Barn Murder - the killing of Maria Marten by her lover, William Corder, in May 1827
- is the first true crime I was ever aware of. As a child, I remember summer
days out in the Suffolk village where the murder took place, walking past Maria’s house or William’s, fascinated by what had happened there and by the real people behind
the legend. I lived in Bury St Edmunds, the town where Corder was hanged, and
every weekend I passed the Gaol where the execution took place on the way to my
grandmother’s house. So it’s no surprise that the story made such an impact on me, and I realised
when I sat down to begin the fifth novel in my ‘Josephine Tey’ series that I’ve always wanted to find a different way to tell it. Tey had Suffolk
ancestry, and we know from her work that she was fascinated by true crimes from
the past - The Franchise Affair and The Daughter of Time are both
based on historical cases - so I felt she would have loved the facts and the
mythologies that circle around the Red Barn Murder, too. The challenge was to
make the story fresh again, because the case is so well known. At the time, it
attracted extraordinary media attention and it’s
been a popular subject for books, plays and films ever since. I wanted the
novel to question some of the stereotypes of the story that have lived on,
whilst avoiding the temptation to re-write history by giving the crime too
modern a spin or forcing some of my own attitudes onto the characters.

As The Death of Lucy Kyte took shape, I found that the least
interesting thing for me about Maria Marten is who killed her. Solving puzzles
is at the heart of detective fiction and it’s human nature to want
to get to the truth, to look for a new revelation in an old crime, to find a
miscarriage of justice and right it if possible. Several books have created
alternative scenarios to Corder’s guilt, suggesting that Maria’s stepmother knew more than she admitted, or that others were somehow
involved in Maria’s death. As a crime writer, these theories interest me, even though I’m still convinced that she died at Corder’s
hand. But as a woman, I wanted to know more about Maria and her life, to
understand the situation she found herself in and the circumstances that gave
her no choice but to walk with a man she no longer loved to the Red Barn on
that fateful day in May. Strip away the bonnets and the ballads, and you’re
left with a timeless story of a woman we all recognise.

Ironically, perhaps, that’s what I felt hadn’t been explored - Maria Marten, and who she really was. History offers
us very limited versions of her, each a variation on the theme of victim or
whore. The woman we think we know, handed down to us through films and
melodrama, is not the woman who walked the fields of Polstead. She wasn’t the innocent maiden any more than William Corder was the wicked squire
- three illegitimate children by different fathers testify to that - but the
reality is more fascinating than the stereotype; she was a good mother by all
accounts, well-educated, interesting and fun to be with, a woman who made
mistakes and tried to put them right, someone you and I might know from our
circle of friends - but you have to look very hard to find that living,
breathing person. The real Maria Marten faded from sight in the aftermath of
her death and is now forever lost to us. Her name - originally spelt ‘Martin’ - has been changed by history, and the portrait sold in the streets of
Bury on the eve of Corder’s execution was actually drawn from a likeness of her sister. Even Maria’s face, as we know it, is a lie.

And that still happens: a few miles from where Maria died and nearly two
centuries later, Steve Wright murdered five Suffolk women; the case was a
national sensation but I doubt that many people now, less than ten years after
it happened, could name each one of his victims or bring their faces to mind.
How many of us could list the Yorkshire Ripper’s
victims, or Christie’s, or Ted Bundy's? Anonymity and distortion are too often the fate of a
woman who is murdered: we lose sight of her life in the shock of her death;
over time, her identity is lost until she exists only in the shadow of our
fascination with her killer. I wanted to bring Maria Marten back into focus in
this book, to give her loss a human face and voice. In fiction, as in life, there’s
much more to crime than a puzzle and a solution.

The Death of Lucy Kyte by Nicola Upson is out now in paperback, £7.99 (Faber
& Faber)

More information about Nicola Upson and her work can be found on her website. She can also be found on Facebook and you can also follow her on Twitter @nicolaupsonbook.

Friday, 30 May 2014

Thursday 29 May 2014, marked the official countdown to publication
for No. 1 bestselling writerStephen King’s new
novel, MR MERCEDES, which publishes on 3 June 2014, and the launch of an
innovative digital content campaign. MR MERCEDES is a riveting cat-and-mouse
thriller from the master of suspense whose insight into the mind of an obsessed,
insane killer is chilling and unforgettable.

Hodder & Stoughton publishers have worked with the agency The Upside, which has devised a creative strategy highlighting the fabulous breadth of Stephen King's storytelling. The idea is simple: have some of King’s classic characters come to life to introduce his new book and thereby increase the audience beyond his typical fan base. The concept is executed by the director-animator Andrew Griffin.

Five mini animations of
15" have been created, each featuring a different character from one of
King's celebrated books. Each will reveal more about Mr Mercedes,
the eponymous character in King's memorable new novel.

‘Who is
going to be the fish in this relationship, and who is going to be the
fisherman?’

Bill
Hodges: retired cop.

Brady
Hartsfield: the criminal whose case Hodges never solved.

Now
each is closing in on the other once more in a mega-stakes, high suspense race
against time from worldwide bestselling writer Stephen King.

‘King’s
gift of storytelling is unrivalled’ George
Pelecanos

Retired
homicide detective Bill Hodges is haunted by the few cases he left open, and by
one in particular:in the pre-dawn
hours, hundreds of desperate unemployed people were lined up for a spot at a
job fair in the distressed Midwestern city where he worked. Without warning, a
lone driver ploughed through the crowd in a stolen Mercedes. Eight people were
killed, fifteen wounded. The killer escaped.

Months
later, on the other side of the city, Bill Hodges gets a taunting letter in the
mail, from a man claiming to be the perpetrator. Hodges wakes up from his
depressed and vacant retirement, hell-bent on hunting him down.

Brady
Hartsfield lives with his alcoholic mother in the house where he was born. And
he is preparing to kill again.

Hodges, with
a couple of misfit friends, must apprehend the killer in a high-stakes race
against time. Because Brady's next mission, if it succeeds, will kill or maim
hundreds, even thousands.

Publication of the hardcover, audio digital downloadand eBook will be on 3 June,2014

Copyright (c) Shane Leonard

STEPHEN
KING is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide
bestsellers. His titles include Carrie,
11.22.63 and Doctor Sleep.Many of his books have been turned into
celebrated films and television series including Under the Dome, The Shawshank Redemption and Misery.

KING
was the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished
Contribution to American Letters and in 2007 won the Grand Master Award from
the Mystery Writers of America. He lives with his wife Tabitha King, in Maine.

Gillian Flynn, author of the critically acclaimed, multi-million copy bestseller Gone Girl, will write a novel based on Hamlet for the Hogarth Shakespeare series, a major international publishing initiative across the Penguin Random House Group that presents retellings of Shakespeare for contemporary readers by some of today’s best-known international writers.

One of the most influential plays in literature, Hamlet is also Shakespeare’s darkest psychological tragedy. Flynn says, ‘Hamlet has long been a fascination of mine: murder, betrayal, revenge, deceit, madness ‒ all my favorite things. Add to that some of Shakespeare’s most intriguing, curious characters ‒ from the titular brooding prince to rueful Ophelia ‒ and what (slightly cheeky) writer wouldn’t be tempted to reimagine it?’

Flynn joins an illustrious line-up of novelists on the Hogarth Shakespeare list: Margaret Atwood has chosen The Tempest, Tracy Chevalier Othello, Howard Jacobson The Merchant of Venice, Jo Nesbo Macbeth, Anne Tyler The Taming of the Shrew and Jeanette Winterson The Winter’s Tale. The series, led by Hogarth UK in partnership with Hogarth US, will launch to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death in 2016. A publication date for Flynn’s contribution to the series has not yet been announced.

Gillian Flynn, whose novels are published in the UK by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, is also the author of Sharp Objects and Dark Places. Flynn has receivedtwo CWA Daggers and was also shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for her first novel Sharp Objects. Gone Girl, her third novel, was published in 2012 and, since then, has sold nearly 6.5 million copies internationally across all formats. The book was a #1 Sunday Times bestseller and remained in the top ten for 26 consecutive weeks.

In October 2014, Gone Girl will debut on the big screen as a major motion picture produced by 20th Century Fox, directed by David Fincher (The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Fight Club), starring Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Emily Ratajkowski and Sela Ward. Gillian Flynn wrote the screenplay. Film rights to Sharp Objects and Dark Places, both of which are currently on the New York Times paperback trade fiction bestseller list, have also been sold. Dark Places, starring Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron, will debut in 2015.

Flynn’s work has been published in 40 languages. A former writer and critic for Entertainment Weekly, she lives in Chicago with her husband and son.

In 1917 Virginia and Leonard Woolf started The Hogarth Press from their Richmond home, Hogarth House, armed only with a hand-press and a determination to publish the newest, most inspiring writing. It went on to publish some of the twentieth century’s most significant writers, joining forces with Chatto & Windus in 1946.

Inspired by their example, Hogarth was launched in 2012 as a home for a new generation of literary talent; an adventurous fiction imprint with an accent on the pleasures of storytelling and a keen awareness of the world. Hogarth is a partnership between Chatto & Windus in the UK and Crown in the US, and its novels are published from London and New York.

Hogarth has enjoyed notable international success with Shani Boianjiu’s debut novel, The People of Forever Are Not Afraid, which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in the UK, and the New York Times bestseller A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra, which has won an array of awards and prizes, including the John Leonard Prize, established in 2014 by the National Book Critics Circle to recognise outstanding first books in any genre, the Barnes & Noble 2013 Discover Award and the 2012 Whiting Award. In the US, Hogarth has also had significant success with the New York Times bestseller The Dinner by Herman Koch.

About The Hogarth Shakespeare

The Hogarth Shakespeareprogramme will launch to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death in 2016. This international publishing initiative is led by Hogarth UK and published in partnership with Hogarth US, Knopf Canada, Knaus Verlag in Germany; Lumen in Spain; ISBN/Il Saggiatore in Italy; Modtryk in Denmark; and Random House Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India. The novels will be published simultaneously across the English-speaking world in print, digital and audio formats.

The US publishing team are Molly Stern, Senior Vice President, Publisher, Crown Publishers; and Alexis Washam, Senior Editor, Hogarth (US) and Crown. The series will be published in Canada by Louise Dennys, Executive Publisher, Random House of Canada Limited; in Germany by Claudia Vidoni of Knaus Verlag; in Spain by Silvia Querini of Lumen; in Italy by Massimo Coppola, Publisher and Editorial Director of ISBN/Il Saggiatore; and in Denmark by Nanna Knudsen, Editor-in-Chief of Modtryk.

Penguin Random House (http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/) is the world’s first truly global trade book publisher. It was formed on 1 July, 2013, upon the completion of an agreement between Bertelsmann and Pearson to merge their respective trade publishing companies, Random House and Penguin, with the parent companies owning 53% and 47%, respectively. Penguin Random House comprises the adult and children’s fiction and non-fiction print and digital trade book publishing businesses of Penguin and Random House in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India, Penguin’s trade publishing activity in Asia and South Africa; Dorling Kindersley worldwide; and Random House’s companies in Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, and Chile. Penguin Random House employs more than 10,000 people globally across almost 250 editorially and creatively independent imprints and publishing houses that collectively publish more than 15,000 new titles annually. Its publishing lists include more than 70 Nobel Prize laureates and hundreds of the world’s most widely read authors.

Rose Gold is by Walter Mosley and is due to be published in
September 2014.Set in the Patty Hearst
era of radical Black Nationalism, a black ex-boxer, self-named Uhuru Nolica,
the leader of a revolutionary cell called Scorched Earth, has kidnapped
Rosemary Goldsmith, daughter of a weapons manufacturer. If the demands of
Scorched Earth aren't met - money, weapons and an apology - 'Rose Gold' will
die, horribly and publicly. So the FBI and the LAPD turn to Easy Rawlins, the
one man who can cross the necessary borders to resolve this dangerous standoff.
Rose Gold takes us back to the
streets of sprawling, post-war Los Angeles and, this time, to the dark
precincts of violent radicalism.

Jonathan Drake is not having a good day.His wife has left him.His latest case at the Met is haunting him –
a victim of a stalker they couldn’t stop in time.And now after a mudlark finds a severed
finger on the shore of the Thames, an undertaker has got in touch with
information from a very unlikely source.The untitled new book by AK Benedict shows just how fine a line lies
between the living and the dead and is due to be published in November 2014.

Dr David Evans is a top neurosurgeon at a hospital in
Washington. He's also a single parent after his wife died from a brain tumour
he - the expert - failed to spot. Then one night when he stays late to save the
life of a gang member caught in crossfire, his young daughter goes missing. He
finds the nanny dead in the basement of his house. Because this is no ordinary
disappearance - his daughter has been kidnapped because he is secretly about to
perform surgery on the most important person in the US, the President, and
there are those who don't want the man to survive. Caught between his desire to
save his daughter and the terrible consequences if he fulfils the kidnappers
demands, Evans is in a race against time that will mean him turning to the one
person he has not spoken to in years - his dead wife's sister.The
Tipping Point is by J G Jurado and is due to be published in December 2014.

In 2012, the publication of Standing in Another Man’s Grave heralded the welcome re-emergence
of Ian Rankin’s most revered character, John Rebus, and 2013 saw his return in Saints of the Shadow Bible.Now – including an introduction and two brand
new stories - Orion are publishing the ultimate Rebus short story
collection.No Rankin aficionado can do
without. The Beat Goes On will be
published in October 2014.

'There were times I felt I would always be death's
passenger. It moved one step ahead of me wherever I went, letting its shadow
fall across me. It carried me on; shaded me from the world other people lived
in.' Leaving behind his life of violence in Brazil's darkest shadows, Zico is
determined to become a better man. But it seems his old life isn't quite done
with him yet when he's tasked with making one last kill. It's one that could
get him everything he has ever wanted; a house, some land, cash in his pocket,
a future for him and his girlfriend, Daniella. But this one isn't like all the
others. This one comes at a much higher price. The Darkest Heart is by Dan Smith and is due to be published in
July 2014. It is a journey through the shadowy heart of Brazil and the even
darker mind of a killer, where fear is a death sentence and the only chance of
survival might mean abandoning the only good thing you've ever known.

No Safe House
is by Linwood Barclay and is due to
be published in September 2014. Seven years ago, Terry Archer and his family
experienced a horrific ordeal that nearly cost them their lives.Today, the echoes of that fateful night are
still audible.Terry's wife, Cynthia, is
living separate from her husband and daughter after her own personal demons
threatened to ruin her relationship with them permanently.Their daughter, Grace, is rebelling against
her parents' seemingly needless overprotection.Terry is just trying to keep his family together.And the entire town is reeling from the senseless
murder of two elderly locals.But when
Grace foolishly follows her delinquent boyfriend into a strange house, the
Archers must do more than stay together.They must stay alive.Because now
they have all been unwillingly drawn into the shadowy depths of their seemingly
idyllic hometown.For there, they will
be reconnected with the man who saved their lives seven years ago, but who
still remains a ruthless, unrepentant criminal.They will encounter killers for hire working all sides.And they will learn that there are some
things people value much more than money, and will do anything to get it.Caught in a labyrinth between family loyalty
and ultimate betrayal, Terry must find a way to extricate his family from a
lethal situation he still doesn't fully comprehend.All he knows is that to live, he may have to
do the unthinkable...

James Lee Burke's new novel begins in West Texas in
1934, and the story opens with a

fateful encounter between the narrator, Weldon
Avery Holland, and the notorious Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker - a meeting
which ends with the sixteen-year-old Holland putting a bullet through the
windscreen of Clyde's stolen automobile. Weldon's education in the evils that
men - and women - are capable of continues as we move to the Ardennes Forest
and the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, where Second Lieutenant Weldon Holland
saves his sergeant, Hershel Pine, from death by suffocation when he is buried
alive in his foxhole under the treads of a Waffen SS Tiger tank. Weldon and
Hershel survive the executions of the wounded by the SS and escape on a freight
train deep into Nazi Germany. There, they stumble into an extermination camp
deserted by the SS, and discover among the stacked bodies a young woman named
Rosita Lowenstein - the second woman to change Weldon's life. Weldon goes all
the way to the Elbe River in the war's brutal climax, but afterwards he is
determined to find Rosita - eventually tracking her down in Paris, where they
get married. But Hershel has also found gold in the dross of conflict, claiming
to have discovered the secret to the Tiger tank's indestructibility, its unique
welding process - and on their return to the States, it looks as if the two
friends have not merely survived; they're going to be rich. But as the two form
a pipeline corporation and enter the oil business, they are about to encounter
- amidst the super-rich of Huston - levels of greed and cruelty they thought
they had left far behind in the blood and horror of war.Wayfaring
Stranger is by James Lee Burke and is due to be published in November 2014.

Fiddle City is by Dan Kavanagh and is due to be published in
August 2014.Everyone knows a bit of
petty theft goes on in the freight business at Heathrow - it is fiddle city,
after all. But things have gone beyond a joke for Roy Hendrick and he suspects
someone who works for him is helping themselves to more than they should.
That's when he sets Duffy on the case. A bisexual ex-policeman, Duffy runs a
struggling security firm, has an obsessive attitude to cleanliness and can
often be found propping up the bar at the Alligator. Duffy agrees to work for
Hendrick and goes undercover to try and root out the culprit. But things aren't
all they're cracked up to be and soon Duffy worries he's trying to be bought.
What's the story behind the imperious HR manager Mrs Boseley with her
permanently frosty demeanour? And is Hendrick really as honest as he claims to
be? Duffy's up to his neck in it.

The Girl in
6E is by A R Torre and is due to be
published in July 2014.Deanna Madden,
aka Jessica Reilly, hasn't touched another person in three years. She hasn't
left her apartment. She makes money from performing to webcams on a sex site,
where her clients pay $6.99 a minute for her time. She's doing alright. The
dollars are piling up in the bank. She's the number 3 model on cams.com. And
she hasn't killed anyone for years. But when Deanna sees on the news that a
little girl called Annie has gone missing, the story rattles her carefully
ordered world. It's uncomfortably similar to the dark fantasy of one of her
most disturbing online clients. She's convinced he's responsible for the girl's
abduction - but no one will listen to her. So, after three years, Deanna
finally leaves the apartment. And this is what happens...

The Sins of
the Father is by Graham Hurley and is
due to be published in November 2014.A
rich old man, Rupert Moncrieff, is beaten to death in his waterside mansion,
his head hooded and his throat cut.His
extended family are still living beneath his roof, each with their own motives
for murder.And in this world of
darkness and dysfunction are the artefacts and memories of colonial atrocities
that are returning to haunt them all.At
the heart of the investigation is DS Jimmy Suttle who, along with his estranged
wife Lizzie, is fighting his own demons after the abduction and death of their
young daughter.But who killed Robert
Moncrieff? And what secrets is the house holding on to that could unravel this
whole investigation.

Sherlock Holmes is dead. Days after Holmes and his
arch-enemy Moriarty fall to their doom at the Reichenbach Falls, Pinkerton
agent Frederick Chase arrives in Europe from New York. The death of Moriarty
has created a poisonous vacuum which has been swiftly filled by a fiendish new
criminal mastermind who has risen to take his place. Ably assisted by Inspector
Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard, a devoted student of Holmes's methods of
investigation and deduction, Frederick Chase must forge a path through the darkest
corners of the capital to shine light on this shadowy figure, a man much feared
but seldom seen, a man determined to engulf London in a tide of murder and
menace.Moriarty is by Anthony Horowitz and is due to be published in
October 2014.

Dana Nolan was a promising young TV reporter until she
was kidnapped by a notorious serial killer. A year has passed since she
survived the ordeal, but Dana is still physically, emotionally, and
psychologically scarred, racked with bouts of post-traumatic stress disorder
and memory loss. In an attempt to put herself back together after surviving the
unthinkable, Dana returns to her hometown. But it doesn't provide the comfort
she expects: she struggles to recognize family and childhood friends and begins
experiencing dark flashbacks. But she's not sure if they're truly memories or
side effects of her brain injury. Dana decides to use her investigative skills
to piece together her past and learns of the event that made her become a
reporter in the first place: the disappearance of her best friend, Casey Grant,
the summer after high school graduation. Looking at her past and the unsolved
mystery through the dark filter of her shattered psyche, old friends seem to be
suspects, authority figures part of a cover-up. Dana begins to question
everything she knows. What is real? What is imagined? Are we defined by what
happens to us? And is the truth really something too terrible to be believed?Cold,
Cold Heart is by Tami Hoag and is due t be published in August 2014.

Eighteen-year-old Twist doesn't have much. No money,
no home and no family. All he has is his reputation as one of the most daring
street artists in London - whose unique skills are matched only by his infamous
talent as a climber and free-runner. But when he finds himself on the run from
the police, he knows that he could be about to lose the last thing he has left
- his freedom. Until he is saved by the mysterious Dodge. When Dodge introduces
him to con artist and art 'collector' Cornelius Faginescu, Twist realises that
he finally has the chance to be part of something. All that he has to do is put
aside his moral objections and learn to steal...Twist is
by Tim Grass and is due to be published in September 2014.

The Prophecy
of Bees is by R S Pateman and is due
to be published in November 2014.When
Lindy, a recently widowed American expat, buys a large manor house in the
Cotswolds, she thinks it’s the fresh start she and her wayward daughter Izzy
need.Stagcote manor is a large rambling
house with a rich history and Lindy is thrilled at the prospect of their news
life there. Izzy, however is less convinced.She longs to be back in the hustle and bustle of London.There is something unnerving about the house
that she can’t quite put her finger on.And as Izzy begins to immerse herself in Stagcote life, she gradually
realises the locals have a lot of disturbing superstitions, many of them
related to the manor. When Izzy begins to investigate the history of the house
her unease soon darkens to fear as the manor’s dark past finally comes to
light.

A remote military research station in Utah sends out a
frantic distress call, ending with a

chilling final command: Kill us all!
Personnel from the neighbouring base rush in to discover everyone already dead
- and not just the scientists, but every living thing for 50 square miles has
been annihilated. The land is entirely sterile - and the blight is spreading.
To halt the inevitable, Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma must unravel a threat
that rises out of the distant past, to a time when Antarctica was green and all
life on Earth balanced upon the blade of a knife. Following clues from an
ancient map rescued from the lost Library of Alexandria, Sigma will discover
the truth about an ancient continent, about a new form of death buried under
miles of ice. From millennia-old secrets out of the frozen past to mysteries
buried deep in the darkest jungles of today, Sigma will face its greatest
challenge to date: stopping the coming extinction of mankind. But is it already
too late? The Sixth Extinction is by
James Rollins and is due to be published in August 2014.

In the LAPD's Open-Unsolved Unit, not many murder
victims die almost a decade after the crime. So when a man succumbs to
complications from being shot by a stray bullet nine years earlier, Bosch
catches a case in which the body is still fresh, but any other evidence is
virtually non-existent. Now Bosch and his new partner, rookie Detective Lucia
Soto, are tasked with solving what turns out to be a highly charged,
politically sensitive case. Starting with the bullet that's been lodged for
years in the victim's spine, they must pull new leads from years-old
information, which soon reveals that this shooting may have been anything but
random.The Burning Room is by Michael Connelly and is due to be published
in November 2014.

DS Alex Morrow is called to a house where four
children are living alone.Their mother
a high-flying lawyer, is missing and has been for five days.The assumption is that she has run off or
been taken by a former partner.But why
didn’t the children phone the police before now?A similar case is unfolding nearby, when the
mother in a family has disappeared.The
police working the case assume that she is feckless and has run off because the
family is struggling financially.But
Morrow can see the details: the children’s trousers are hemmed by hand, the
floor is clean, and there are plenty of books in the house.Plus, the children seem to be hiding
something, the smaller ones kept away from the police and their alcoholic aunt has
been drafted in so that they won’t go into care.With the help of Danny – in prison and acting
as her consigliere – Morrow has to uncover a web of corruption and lies that
runs from a small gang-controlled estate up to the highest echelons of the
Glasgow City Council.The currently
untitled Denise Mina will be published in January 2015.

It's been 25 years since Alfred Chalmers was convicted
of the gruesome murder of four young women in Edinburgh. Isobel McArthur,
Scotland's first Chief Superintendent, was the woman responsible for putting
him behind bars, but the case has haunted her ever since. Now, with her
retirement approaching, McArthur decides the time has come for answers. To
uncover the truth, she revisits the case and interviews Chalmers for the first
time in decades. But her decision rips opens old wounds and McArthur is soon
caught up in a web of corruption, psychological mind-games and deceit that
threatens not only her own life, but those of her fellow officers and even her
own daughter. Tense, gritty and hard-hitting, Dark Road is the first ever stage play from crime writer Ian
Rankin, co-written by the Royal Lyceum's Artistic Director Mark Thomson and is
due to be published in July 2014.

Fear the
Darkness is by Becky Masterman and is
due to be published in August 2014.Ex-FBI
Agent Brigid Quinn thinks she has a second chance at life. After too many years
spent in the company of evil, she's quit the Feds and is working out what
normal is meant to feel like. She's swapped serial killers, stakeouts and
interrogation for a husband, friends and free time. But when you've walked in
darkness for so long, can you stand the light? When a local teenager dies in a
tragic drowning accident, the community thinks Brigid might be able to help
comfort the family. But when she does so, something doesn't add up. And it's no
easier at home: after a bereavement in the family, Brigid has reluctantly taken
in her niece to give her a break before she starts college. Brigid's
ever-patient husband Carlo tells her they must go easy on Gemma-Kate, the
grieving youngster. Which is fine, until she starts taking an unhealthy
interest in dissecting the local wildlife. For Brigid, death still seems to be
wherever she turns. But as she herself starts to feel unwell, it's her own
mortality that is the most troubling. And as she tries to get to the bottom of
a series of allegedly accidental deaths and increasingly gruesome occurrences
at home, she slowly realises that maybe this time, she's let the darkness
inside the only place she ever felt safe. Sometimes, death is closer than you
think.

The Martini
Shot and Other Stories is by George
Pelecanos and is due to be published in October 2014.The title story, The Martini Shot is set in the world of TV, featuring a scriptwriter
on a popular cop show.When member of
the crew is murdered, the screenwriter decides to track down the perpetrators
himself to see if, as a writer, he can do more than just talk the talk.The rest of the collection showcases Pelecanos’
genius for rendering life on the edge of America’s meanest streets.

Things are hotting up in the Third Division and it seems someone is nobbling players.Following the loss of one of one of his best strikers, Jimmy Lister, former England player and now an ineffectual club manager, calls on the expertise of the inimitable Duffy.Duffy must investigate the troubled world of lower league football while also facing questions about his possible encounter with AIDS, whether he’s cooked his frozen pizza for too long and whether he is too short to be a decent goalkeeper.Putting the Boot In is by Dan Kavanagh and is due to be published in December 2014.

Following the death of Duke of Cadogan, talented young
rider Duncan Claymore inherits his large estate.Duncan has put his demons behind him and is
well on his way to achieving his dream of becoming Champion jockey.However, Cadogan’s wealth proves to be
illusory, with a manor house and grounds mortgaged to the hilt, and a list of creditors
who include the formidable George Pleasance.And Duncan’s rival on the file, Sandy Sanderson, looks set to shatter
his ambition.Down on his luck, out of
favour and broke, Duncan has to try and engineer a return to good fortune,
restore his reputation and bring down his father’s enemy of old, William
Osborne.The untitled A.P McCoy novel is
due to be published in November 2014.

Foxglove
Summer is the fifth in the series by Ben
Aaronovitch and is due to be published in September 2014. In Foxglove Summer Peter Grant finds
himself out of the comfort zone he might have had out of London - to a small
village in Herefordshire where the local police are reluctant to admit that
there might be a supernatural element to the disappearance of some local
children. But while you can take the London copper out of London you can't take
the London out of the copper. Travelling west with Beverley Brook, Peter soon
finds himself caught up in a deep mystery and having to tackle local cops and
local gods. And what's more all the shops are closed by 4pm...

Saturday, 24 May 2014

The Folio Society is publishing a lavish four-volume edition of Hercule Poirot’s most celebrated and unforgettable mysteries. The bestselling novelist and screenwriter Anthony Horowitz, who adapted the Poirot novels for television, has contributed an outstanding introduction which appears in the complete set. Each volume also features artwork by illustrator Andrew Davidson, continuing his beautiful, nostalgic images from The Folio Society’s single-volume Miss Marple Short Stories and four-volume Miss Marple Novels Collection.

In 1920, the world was introduced to the most beloved detective in 20th-century fiction: Hercule Poirot. This ‘extraordinary-looking little man’, a refugee from war-torn Belgium, would investigate some of the most famous of Christie’s mysteries. This collection unites four of the best Poirot novels. With settings as varied as the frozen plains of Central Europe and the Nile River valley, they also include his first ever mystery.

“There is no more cunning player of the murder game than Agatha Christie” Sunday Times

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

When the wealthy Emily Inglethorp is poisoned at her country house, Styles, the culprit seems obvious. Her husband Alfred was heard to quarrel with her violently – and was seen buying strychnine in the local town. Yet when he is just about to be arrested, Hercule Poirot comes forward to save him. He reminds all concerned that appearances can be deceiving, and that there are unsolved oddities in the case – including the shattered coffee cup, the scrap of green cloth and the burned fragments of a will … The first novel to introduce us to both Poirot and Hastings, this is also one of Christie’s most satisfying mysteries.

Murder on the Orient Express

A curious group of passengers is assembled on the Istanbul–Calais coach of the Simplon Orient Express. They include a Russian princess, an Italian salesman, an English colonel – and Hercule Poirot. The morning after the train is stopped dead by a deep snowdrift, American millionaire Mr Ratchett is found stabbed to death, his compartment bolted on the inside. It is clear that the murderer must be one of his fellow passengers – and must still be on the train. One of Christie’s most famous novels, Murder on the Orient Express boasts a truly audacious solution.

The ABC Murders

Alice Ascher, an elderly shopkeeper, has been murdered in Andover. Next, the pretty waitress Betty Barnard is found dead in Bexhill-on-Sea. Each of these murders is hinted at beforehand in a taunting letter to Poirot, signed ‘ABC’. Together with his friend Arthur Hastings, and a team from Scotland Yard, Poirot must pursue the ABC serial killer – in a battle of wits that soon becomes very personal indeed. The murderer keeps one step ahead at first, but as Poirot puts it, ‘He cannot help throwing light upon himself …’ Unusually for Christie, The ABC Murders employs multiple narrators, spinning an ingenious web that culminates in a startling finale – a truly brilliant mystery.

Death on the Nile

Poirot has decided to escape the winter with a cruise down the Nile River in Egypt. Among his fellow travellers are a couple on honeymoon, Simon and Linnet Doyle. They are being stalked by Simon’s former fiancée, Jacqueline de Bellefort, who shows Poirot her pearl-handled pistol – ‘a dainty toy’. Shortly afterwards, Linnet Doyle is shot in the head. Suspicion falls on Jacqueline, but Poirot knows that other passengers had their own reasons to bring death to the Nile. Inspired by Christie’s travels with her archaeologist husband, this world-famous story has twice been adapted for the screen.

Illustrations from l-r: The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, The ABC Murders.

For over 65 years The Folio Society has been publishing beautiful illustrated editions of the world's greatest books. We believe that the literary content of a book should be matched by its physical form. With specially commissioned and researched illustrations, many of our editions are further enhanced with introductions written by leading figures in their fields: novelists, journalists, academics, scientists and artists.

There are hundreds of Folio Society editions currently in print covering fiction, biography, history, science, philosophy, children's literature, humour, myths and legends and more. Exceptional in content and craftsmanship and maintaining the very highest standards of fine book production, Folio Society editions are created to last for generations.